I would like to respond to Jacques P. Guertin’s idea (Letters, March 8) of placing metal detectors in high schools. As a junior at Prospect High School, I have never felt anything but safe at Prospect and can’t understand why everyone seems to think of schools as dangerous environments. Prospect has already installed security cameras, which to me is more of an intimidating, big brother presence than a security measure. With Prospect’s open layout, the only way I could imagine instituting metal detectors would be to surround the entire school with fences, a concept far more frightening to me than it’s alternative. It’s a school, not a prison.

Becky Booroojian
San Jose

Rodriguez spins

nice biking points

It seems Gary Richards (Page 1A, March 9) starts a little defensive when he confronts Joe Rodriguez about why he needs four vehicles and he never quite gets beyond this. However, Joe presents his path to automotive independence in a much more interesting way, which I appreciate. I have tried to quit my addiction to automobiles here in the valley and have found it quite difficult, so I appreciate hearing Joe’s experience. This article also gave me a new and much better perspective into two writers who come into my home everyday. In the future I will read their articles in a slightly different, more human, light. However, given the need for the Mercury News to become more inclusive, the Roadshow should share space with weekly bikers column, and maybe a weekly mass-transit column, also.

Joe Rich
Santa Clara

Fiorina’s leadership

skills questioned

Frank Davies (Page 1A, March 8) needs to do far more research when stating that Carly Fiorina is “one of the nation’s best-known business leaders.” Leader? Please look at the devastation – including the lowest stock prices ever, huge layoffs and plummeting morale – her reign brought to the once proud Hewlett-Packard company. She almost ruined this wonderful company in her five-year reign. Her removal was a very loud statement about her leadership. And do note that in three years, a true leader, Mark Hurd, has turned the company around, restored employee and retiree pride, more than doubled the stock price, and has almost doubled the earnings. Republicans had better watch out if Carly gets into the power group: The Democrats will be getting a lot of new members.

Pat Fausett
Los Altos

Voting not as easy

as casting ballot

As a senior in high school enrolled in government, I have undergone a political awakening. I realize voting in the upcoming election and forming my own political opinion is going to be a much more daunting task than assumed. I have had the invisible mask of innocence unveiled to understand that my information comes from the media. Therefore, I can never obtain unbiased information to rely on. This is why I believe that young people are not voting or taking an active role in government. We are going to have to actually do our “homework” in finding both sides of a story, then make a decision based on our own principles and morals.

Zoe Saenz
San Jose

Once again, city

failed on ‘Saigon’

It’s hard to believe, but it happened. The San Jose City Council’s decided not to approve “Little Saigon” because there were 92 business owners’ signatures against it. What about the other 4,000 supporters’ signatures? Where is written in our democratic system that the votes of these business owners can be counted as 30 or 40 times more than others? Of those who showed up at the council meeting, 99 percent wanted the city to approve Little Saigon. The Vietnamese community gave Mayor Chuck Reed and the city council one more chance to correct themselves, but they failed. They dishonored the wishes and voices of the majority of the community. Clearly they have showed to these Vietnamese-Americans that democracy is not always the foundation of their decisions.

Thu Ninh
San Jose

Political games

we often play

Steve Rhodes (Letters, March 8) wrote of his fear that a Barack Obama administration and a Democratic majority in the House and Senate would result in “a feckless foreign policy and an economic disaster.” We sure don’t want that to happen.

Larry Cohen
Los Gatos

Bush tramples

on people’s rights

Perhaps it is simply a troubling coincidence, but more likely it is a scary insight into the current administration. On the same day that a champion of human rights in China disappears into their gulag, there is a newspaper article that indicates President Bush not only condones torture but also actively insists on using torture. He vetoes a bill that would merely restrict the CIA to using only the 19 interrogation techniques found in the Army field manual. Along with secretive warrantless spying on Americans, putting political ideology ahead of competence and his obscene grab for “executive power,” President Bush not only shows disdain for the Bill of Rights, he also is actively working to eliminate our civil liberties. When will this nightmarish assault on our wonderful U.S. Constitution end?